84% Dixie

Growing up in a "Navy Town" meant that, although there were people whose families had lived in the area for generations, a large part of the population was transient, coming from all over the country. Even though I grew up in a Southern state, I developed a much fainter Southern accent than my cousins who lived at the other end of Virginia.


When I first moved to Richmond, I was surprised at the difference that a ninety minute car ride made in the way people talked. For example, let's use the words mouse and house. I pronounce the 'ou' in these words like the 'ow' in cow. When born-and-bred Richmonders I met said they had "a mouse in the house" these words rhymed with dose. I had a Mom and a Dad; they had a Mumma and a Deddy (said together it turned into mummindeddy). I might go buy groceries at the end of my day, but I worked with a couple of women who would "make groceries" on their way home. My boss, Chuck, didn't invite me over for a beer; it was a bee-uh. A bear was a buy-uh. The James Riv-uh bisects Richmond. There were new expressions to learn, also, that I had never heard in Virginia Beach. An assurance of sincerity was "I'm serious as a heart (haht) attack," and a joke-teller might be "as funny as a crutch."


My grandmother, who lived in Iowa all her life, gave directions based on the magnetic compass. You didn't turn right at the end of a road, you went west. This applied to everything, and everyone in Iowa seemed in on it. My dad would get confused when he would ask where he could find a spoon in her kitchen, and be told it was in the north drawer. I always stayed in the east bedroom when we visited her. My parents slept in the west room. This method of pinpointing locations made a lot of sense once I got used to it. No matter where you start from, east is east and west is west, but right and left depend entirely on your point of origination. This is also easy in Iowa, where most roads are laid out on a grid pattern. In Virginia, where roads must twist around mountainsides and waterways, you can go in all four directions within ten minutes.


If I think I don't carry my own accent and regionalisms around with me, all I have to do is visit my relatives in Iowa. They don't mind pointing out my Southern drawl. In fact, I learned today that my speech is 84% Dixie. A friend told me about an interesting quiz that was quite fun. Click on this link to see how you score, and be sure to drop by afterwards to share your results in a comment. Y'all come back now, ya hear?